Jerry is the kind of guy you love to hate. He is always in a good mood
and always has something positive to say. When someone would ask him
how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be
twins!"
He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had
followed him around from restaurant to restaurant.

The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He
was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry
was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the
situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to
Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person
all of the time. How do you do it?" Jerry replied, "Each morning I
wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today. You can
choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.
I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can
choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it.
I choose to learn from it.
Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept
their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life.
I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested. "Yes it is," Jerry
said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk,
every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations.
You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a
good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live
life."

I reflected on what Jerry said.

Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own
business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a
choice about life instead of reacting to it. Several years later, I
heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a
restaurant business he left the back door open one morning and was held
up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe,
his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The
robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively
quickly and rushed to the local trauma center. After 18 hours of
surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the
hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how
he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my
scars?" I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone
through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went
through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry
replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two
choices:
I could choose to live or I could choose to die. I chose to live."
"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked. Jerry
continued, "...the paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was
going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the ER and I saw the
expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really
scared. In their eyes, I read 'he's a dead man'.
I knew I needed to take action." "What did you do?" I asked.
"Well, there was a big burly nurse shouting questions at me," said
Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The
doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply.
I took a deep breath and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told
them, 'I am choosing to live.
Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead." Jerry lived thanks to the
skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude.
I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully.
Attitude, after all, is everything.